


Made For This

by Morgana



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Service
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:09:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angels were made to serve, and gods to be served. But what about someone that's neither?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Made For This

Angels were created to serve; it's what they're for, what they've always been for. Gabriel knows this, has known it all his life, and if he were ever in doubt of it, all he'd have to do would be to look at his brothers. Granted, some of them are self-serving dicks, but those that aren't give their service with their whole heart. Just look at Castiel, who serves Dean Winchester with the same dedication and devotion that Michael serves Dad. Both of them derive a satisfaction, even a joy, from their service that is completely foreign to Gabriel.  
  
He thinks it might be because he's been a god almost as long as he was an angel. And gods don't serve - they are served. It makes no difference where their altar is, whether in a grove, a temple, a sacred circle of stones, a high cathedral, or a corner of their followers' homes, it's all the same to them. The faithful come and kneel before them, offering up praise, worship, power, blood, food, sex, and anything else they want. Gabriel misses those days, when the world was his to command with a word. (Okay, maybe not the  _whole_  world, but a pretty decent part of it, at any rate.)  
  
But he wasn't made to be a god, even if he's learned to pass himself off as one. Deep inside, there's a hollow ache, something that he hasn't managed to fill with sweets, sex, TV, or any of the thousand other things he's tried. It's like a cancer at the very heart of him, and it's been growing ever since he first set eyes on the Winchesters. At first he thinks it's the call of Heaven, that somehow he's been found out and his brothers are trying to call him back to take part in their war, but Castiel's almost as cut off as he is, and he doesn't seem to be suffering at all, even though he's fading practically before Heaven's eyes.  
  
He watches his brother for almost a month before the ache grows too much too bear and he goes to ask him about it. "Why aren't you out of your mind yet?"  
  
Castiel doesn't look surprised at his sudden appearance. "I may be losing my place in Heaven, but I am still an angel," he says calmly. "I have my faith in our Father and His chosen humans, and I'm doing the work that He sent me to do."  
  
"Taking care of the Winchesters?" Gabriel snorts, but his brother doesn't seem to share in the joke. He just looks at him for a minute, then looks  _into_  him the way only another angel can. It had been a long, long time since someone had done that, and he'd forgotten how it feels, good and bad all swirled together like the bottom of a hot fudge sundae.  
  
"I was sent to watch over Dean Winchester," Castiel finally says. And that doesn't seem fair - what about Sam? If a human had ever needed an angel's intervention, he does.  
  
Gabriel thinks about asking about that, then changes his mind. As far as Heaven is concerned, Sam Winchester is just another anti-Christ, the vessel for his rebellious brother, assuming he manages to make it out of his cage with this attempt. The odds are pretty heavily stacked against him, seeing as the last two or three hundred tries had failed, but it's Lucifer, and never say die is his motto. And as Lucifer's vessel, Sam's tarred with the same brush in Heaven's eyes.  
  
He might have a bit of a soft spot for runaways who tried to change their fate, but Gabriel knows that most of his brothers don't share his views. As far as they're concerned, the sooner Sam says yes, gives in to his destiny, and lets Michael kill him, the better. It isn't fair, and the longer Gabriel thinks about it, the more upset he gets. It simply isn't  _fair_ , and fair play has always been important to him. There isn't much he can do about the fated confrontation that had been set out long before either Winchester brother was born, but Gabriel can't just stay out of it, either. Sam Winchester's doom might be preordained, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the spiral down to destruction can't be fun.  
  
He starts with candy, since it's easy and portable, and small enough that it won't really draw too much notice. Plus, it's  _candy_ , and who doesn't like candy?!? So it's no trouble to arrange for an extra bag of M&Ms in Sam's bag, a 3 Musketeers on the bedside table, a Hershey bar in the first aid kit, or a 100 Grand tucked in with the laptop. Okay, so the Milky Way in the soap dish might've been a little overkill, but Gabriel couldn't help himself. For some reason, every time he leaves a candy bar for Sam, the pain that he still doesn't have a name for gets a little bit easier to deal with..  
  
Not surprisingly, it's Castiel who figures it out first and summons him to the parking lot of the current dive the Winchesters are staying in. "You must stop this," he informs him as soon as he arrives. "The Winchesters are quite perturbed by the sudden appearance of your gifts."  
  
"But I'm having fun," he whines, wondering when exactly it was that he picked that particular tone of voice up. "And Sam likes them - I've seen him eating them when he thinks Dean isn't looking."  
  
"Be that as it may, you are upsetting Dean, and I cannot allow that." And damn if Castiel doesn't look ready to throw down over this, his feathers clearly ruffled just because Dean Winchester's nose is a little of joint. "If you truly wish to be of service to the Winchesters -"  
  
"Whoa! Who said anything about service?" Gabriel barks out, determined to put a stop to anything that even remotely sounds like that before Castiel can get started. He's not going there, not him. He left that nonsense behind him when he left Heaven, and he couldn't be happier with his decision. "I just wanted to make the kid smile a little, okay? If you wanna take that away from him, then be my guest."  
  
"I didn't -" Castiel begins, but Gabriel's already gone. He doesn't need to stand around and be lectured by a lesser angel, especially one who can't see past Dean Winchester's dick to realize that Sam is about two good, solid pushes away from falling apart.  
  
Gabriel tells himself that he'll leave the Winchesters alone, and for a while, he does. But he can't stop thinking about those dark circles under Sam's eyes that seemed to be growing, or the way his shoulders were almost permanently slumped. And it's not his business, but he wants to give the kid a little support, so he dresses himself up as a pretty redhaired waitress in a diner near Pasco, where he brings Sam fresh strawberries on his waffle, a full carafe of orange juice, and an extra piece or two of bacon. It's a little thing, but he manages to get Sam to smile when he refills his coffee cup, and the pain vanishes entirely under the warmth of the human's smile.  
  
Somehow, he finds himself doing it again a few days later, only this time he's a bartender in Laramie, serving up a cold beer and an order of fries done just right, making sure the wifi connection stays strong and the jukebox plays songs written  _after_ 1989\. Two mornings after that, he's a barista at a little coffee stand in Colorado, a pretty little brunette who drops an extra shot in Sam's latte and finishes it off with a perfect caramel swirl. Every time he hands the order over and gets a smile in return, the pain inside fades until he almost forgets it was ever there.  
  
It isn't long before he's encountering the Winchesters once and sometimes twice a day, changing his form almost constantly in an effort to earn as many smiles from Sam as he can. He learns about him in the process, discovers that fruit and good salad greens will earn him a beaming smile while wifi and sweet coffee drinks seem to be absolute necessities in his world. Gabriel starts experimenting a little, switching things up until he hits upon the perfect combination: a statuesque brunette with legs up to there, buckwheat pancakes with fresh fruit on the side for Sam along with overdone bacon and dry scrambled eggs for Dean, with the whole thing capped off by him shooting Dean down in spectacular fashion when he tried to pick him up. Sam had laughed, actually thrown his head back and  _laughed_ , the sound ringing out free and happy, and Gabriel felt like he might glow with the pleasure of it.  
  
Somewhere along the line he starts to realize that he might have a problem when he starts plotting ways to make the Impala break down near a better hotel so Sam can actually get the History Channel instead of having to download programs and watch them on his laptop. It's a tricky proposition, seeing as how Dean tends to get touchy whenever anything goes wrong with the car, and Dean being upset makes Sam upset as well. They really do have an unnaturally co-dependent relationship, but Gabriel's still looking for a way to make that pay off for him, so he doesn't try changing it just yet. In the end, the Impala overheats, the Winchesters get a really good deal at the Holiday Inn Express courtesy of Gabriel's forged employee code, and Sam's delight in the shower's water pressure is so absolutely beguiling and charming in its joy that it makes Gabriel want to purr.  
  
There's just one problem, one niggling hitch that kept him from being entirely happy - Sam still doesn't know it's him. That hadn't mattered at first, when Gabriel was busy trying to make the pain go away, but now that it's mostly gone, he's been watching Sam's smiles and wondering if they'd be as open and bright if he knew that it was Gabriel giving him these things. Would he even accept them, or would he see it as some kind of trick, a way to manipulate him into saying yes to Lucifer?  
  
It's a depressing thought, and he finds himself almost letting his disguise slip over the next few days, only the thought of seeing the warmth in those hazel eyes turn to icy disdain keeping him from it. But he can't stop thinking about being able to hand the coffee over to Sam as himself rather than the flavor of the moment, can't stop imagining those smiles aimed at him rather than whatever pretty costume he happens to be wearing at the moment. And when Castiel appears at the table one day during lunch and sees the sweet potato fries that the cook just 'happened' to be trying out that day, Gabriel knows the jig is up.  
  
He doesn't wait to be summoned that night, just goes to wait for Castiel in the parking lot beside the Impala. "Are you gonna tell them?"  
  
Castiel looks at him for a minute before replying. "Do you want me to?"  
  
"Are you nuts? Of course I don't!"  
  
His brother doesn't seem to buy it, and Gabriel wonders if hanging around the Winchesters has sharpened his bullshit detector, because he's pretty sure he could've convinced him the clouds were made of marshmallow fluff a few months ago. "Seriously, I don't," he insisted.  
  
"As you wish," Castiel told him. "But I think you would find more pleasure in your service if you were able to offer it without any barriers between you and -"  
  
"Shut up! Just shut up!" He vanishes with a snap of his wings before the conversation can go any further, winging his way to Paris with a thought, leaving Winchesters and brother behind. He knows where Castiel was going with that, what he was about to suggest, and Gabriel's doesn't want any part of it. Castiel can do whatever he wants, hang around Dean like a lap dog, but Gabriel's not about to let someone put a collar on  _him_. He's his own angel, not some cherub to be ordered around at the whim of humans.  
  
Of course, it would be much easier to be his own angel if he didn't keep looking around Paris and thinking of how much Sam would like it. He wonders if he'd be more excited over the fine art in the Louvre, the stark beauty of Notre Dame, or the simple pleasure of lunch at a sidewalk cafe while the city moved around him. He watches couples stroll along the banks of the Seine and kiss under the Eiffel Tower, he listens to people talk and tease each other over lunch at the next table over, and he realizes that he misses Sam.   
  
He misses the way he smiles, the sound of his laughter on those few occasions that he'd been able to coax it forth. He misses the light in his eyes when he's relaxed and happy, the complete absorption that allows him to lose himself in whatever case he's working, and the way he never fails to thank Gabriel when he brings him his order. He misses making the tired lines around his eyes ease, and he wonders who's going to do it now that he's not there. Not Dean, who's almost as worn as Sam, and not Castiel, who won't bother to pay attention to anyone that isn't Dean.  
  
Six days after he left Castiel in the parking lot, Gabriel gives in. Being his own angel isn't nearly as satisfying as it used to be, He follows the trail of his brother's fading Grace to the motel room where Sam's staring listlessly at the TV and hopes he isn't making a huge mistake when he kneels, visible and naked, at his feet.


End file.
